Israel takes credit as jihadists seize control from Assad’s Syrian government

Future unknown: A Syrian girl waits with her family to return to Syria from Turkey on Sunday. After more than a decade of civil war, many Syrians hope the fall of the Assad government will mean an end to fighting and repression. But with religious fundamentalists taking over, the future of Syria's secular society is unknown, especially with both U.S. and Israeli forces operating in the country. | AP

Syrian jihadists took control of the capital Sunday as President Bashar al-Assad was reported to have fled the country to Russia. While the streets of Damascus were filled with celebrants, many activists labelled the collapse of Assad’s Syrian government a “victory for imperialism” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed credit for the overthrow.

The defeat of the secular Syrian government came after a lightning offensive by jihadist insurgent groups, mainly under the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, which seized control of the capital, Damascus.

Syrian state television aired a statement by a group of men saying that Assad had been overthrown and all detainees in jails had been set free. The man who read it said the opposition group known as the “Operations Room to Conquer Damascus” called on all opposition fighters and citizens to preserve state institutions of “the free Syrian state.”

The statement emerged hours after the head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location (later revealed to be Moscow), fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus following a remarkably swift advance of less than two weeks.

Communist Party of Kenya’s General Secretary Booker Omole said: “The fall of Damascus and the collapse of the Assad government, engineered by imperialist forces, marks a somber milestone in the unrelenting assault on Syria’s sovereignty.”

He added: “This is not a triumph of democracy or self-determination; it is a victory for imperialism and reaction.”

Vijay Prashad, director the Tricontinental Centre for Social Research, said: “There is no Syrian revolution. Syria will face a Libyan future,” referring to the overthrow of Muammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Posting on the X social media platform, Prashad explained that “the Syrian state had been devastated by the war from 2011 to 2014,” and then by the sanctions placed on the country by the U.S. and its allies.

“The Syrian army had never fully recovered in the aftermath of the major fighting to take back the main cities of Hama, Homs and Aleppo.”

He added that Israeli attacks on Iranian supply depots and military facilities in Syria, as well as the conflict in Ukraine, meant “Syria’s government no longer had its Iranian and Russian military allies for assistance” against the reinforced insurgents.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed direct credit Sunday for the overthrow of Assad and said he had instructed his forces to “seize the buffer zone and the dominant positions near it,” created in 1974.

Netanyahu said the aim of this was “to ensure the protection of all Israeli communities in the Golan Heights, both Jewish and Druze, so that they face no threats from across the border.”

Former ambassador and historian Craig Murray said: “I am looking for one single word of condemnation from any NATO government of Israel’s current invasion further into Syria.

“Cue the tumbleweed.”

Morning Star

We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

---

CONTRIBUTOR

Roger McKenzie

Roger McKenzie is the International Editor of Morning Star, Britain’s daily socialist newspaper. He is the author of the book "African Uhuru: The Fight for African Freedom in the Rise of the Global South" published by Manifesto Press.